This document discusses testing speaking and grammar. It provides an overview of descriptive and prescriptive grammar. It also outlines some of the micro-skills involved in speaking, such as pronunciation, stress, intonation, vocabulary use, and discourse structure. The document recommends that grammar be tested through multiple choice questions, transformations, and that speaking be tested through open-ended questions. It emphasizes that grammar and social interaction are interrelated and both influence language use.

1. TESTING SPEAKING AND GRAMMAR
Tibizay Jaramillo
Bercelis Ramírez

2. COMPONENT OF LANGUAGE
GRAMMAR, The systematic study and description of a language .
Descriptive grammar Prescriptive grammar
 Refers to the structure  Refers to the structure
of a language as it is of a language as certain
actually used by people think it should be
speakers and writers. used.
Richard Nordquist (2012)

3. GRAMMAR
It is necessary to know grammar, and it is better to
write grammatically than not, but it is well to
remember that grammar is common speech
formulated.
Usage is the only test.
(William Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938, Quoted by Nordquist, R)

4. SPEAKING The productive skill in the oral mode.
 It, like the other
skills, is more
complicated than
it seems at first
and involves
more than just
pronouncing
words.

5. Micro-skills
The speaker has to:
 pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language
clearly enough so that people can distinguish them.
 use stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation
patterns of the language clearly enough so that
people can understand what is said.
 use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for
example, changes in the tense, case, or gender.
 put words together in correct word order.
 use vocabulary appropriately.

6.  use the register or language variety that is
appropriate to the situation and the relationship to
the conversation partner.
 make clear to the listener the main sentence
constituents, such as subject, verb, object, by
whatever means the language uses.
 make the main ideas stand out from supporting
ideas or information.
 make the discourse hang together so that people
can follow what you are saying

7. "Grammar and social
interaction are bound up
together and analysis should
focus on the relationship
between them, rather than
separating grammar out as a
system that exists
independently of language-in-
interaction.”
(Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt quoted
by Richard Nordquist, 2012)

8. How to test Grammar
oMultiple Choice Items
oTransformation
s

9. How to test Speaking
oQUESTIONS
“?”

10. The more we are aware of how it
works, the more we can monitor the
meaning and effectiveness of the
way we and others use language.

12. REFERENCES
Nordquist, R. What Is Grammar? (2012) (On Line) Retrieved from
http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/grammarintro.htm Consulted Apr, 2012)
Speaking and icebreaker activities for ESL teachers (multi-level) Document On Line
http://www.eslflow.com/speakingandcommunicativeicebreakeractivities.htm